Build a roadmap

Harbor FY27 roadmap: expand existing customers first

For the planning offsite | Q4 2026–Q3 2027

Recommendation: protect card continuity, unlock committed subsidiary expansion, then bring more existing-customer spend onto Harbor. Treat procurement as a commercial hypothesis to validate—not as committed revenue or a committed launch.

Board outcome: raise NRR from 104% to 112% by the end of Q3 2027. This roadmap supports that goal; the available evidence does not yet establish a credible revenue bridge all the way to 112%.

1. Proposed roadmap

Planning rules

• Commit against the five existing squads, each with 11 squad-weeks per quarter. Neither new squad is on the critical path.
• Numbers below are squad-weeks. Named feature estimates come from the pack; remaining capacity is an allocation ceiling for rollout, validation, hardening or contingency, not an estimate for additional features.
• Cross-squad delivery uses the stated 1.5× cost.
• Adoption work targets expansion and retention in existing accounts. It is not a placeholder for additional module builds.

Critical-path checks

• Processor migration: Q4 delivers 11 Cards weeks + 4 equivalent weeks from Expenses = 15. Q1 delivers the final 3, reaching the required 18. The February certification target creates margin before the hard retirement date.
• Certification freeze: no changes to the certified implementation during the four-week processor window. Before committing dates, confirm the precise freeze scope, book the processor slot and agree cutover acceptance criteria.
• Multi-entity: Approvals & Policy completes its 10 weeks in Q4; Platform completes 11 + 1. Therefore this is a Q1 launch, not a Q4 launch.
• Spend controls: Expenses spends 12 actual weeks across Q2–Q3 to deliver 8 Cards-equivalent weeks; Approvals & Policy supplies its 4 weeks in Q2. Work begins only after v2 is live.
• New squads: plan no committed output until teams are staffed and their ramp is observed. Use initial capacity for bounded adoption, testing or hardening work; allocate larger scope only after a delivery review.

Outcome scorecard

CS, Sales and Finance should turn these into named-account activation targets and a revenue bridge at the offsite. We should not invent conversion forecasts from the current pack.

2. The case for the plan

Why this order

First, protect the revenue engine. Every card authorisation uses an API retiring on 31 March, and interchange represents 58% of revenue. Tom’s migration occupies 18 of Cards’ 22 available weeks across Q4 and Q1, but must also leave four calendar weeks for certification. Quarterly capacity alone does not prove that schedule is safe.

Borrowing six Expenses weeks moves four Cards-equivalent weeks into Q4. That leaves only three planned migration weeks in Q1 and creates room for defects and certification. Receipt matching slips slightly; card continuity takes precedence.

Second, prioritise expansion with identifiable buyers. Multi-entity has the strongest evidence of a concrete expansion action: nine parents have committed in writing. The full 52-subsidiary opportunity is $2.9M ARR, but we cannot treat that total as committed or infer how many subsidiaries the nine parents represent. Launch in Q1, then sell and onboard—not merely ship.

Third, pursue spend expansion in parallel. Virtual cards have a direct connection to software spend currently outside Harbor. Controls address the most frequently expressed card need in the QBRs and may make finance teams comfortable moving more spend onto Harbor. Borrowing Expenses capacity costs four additional squad-weeks versus specialist delivery, but avoids serialising both products through Cards and supports an early-Q3 controls launch.

The $410M software-spend estimate implies a $4.51M annual net-interchange ceiling at 1.1%, before accounting for capture rates, timing or spend that cannot move from invoice to card. It is an opportunity, not a forecast. Both features may affect the same spend; we will not double-count it.

Fourth, remove retention and expansion friction. Intacct serves 17% of existing customers, versus 3% for Dynamics. The 13% versus 7% churn difference is an association, not proof the integration causes better retention, but it supports prioritising Intacct. SSO/SCIM is relatively small and addresses 11 existing-account security reviews. Receipt matching targets the largest expense support problem.

What changes from Tom’s draft

• Hiring no longer funds commitments. Historical time to the first full sprint was five to eight months, with half-capacity delivery in the first quarter. September approvals do not justify a full squad in Q1 and another in Q2. Further, new squads taking specialist work incur the stated transfer cost.
• Migration gains early borrowed capacity and an explicit certification window. Virtual cards no longer competes with the deadline in Q1.
• Multi-entity launches in Q1. Platform’s 12-week estimate exceeds one quarter’s 11-week capacity.
• Procurement moves from committed launch to commercial validation. Its revenue claim is not supported by current evidence.
• Controls gets borrowed delivery capacity. This creates an earlier adoption window without relying on hiring.
• Dynamics and the mobile rewrite leave the committed horizon. The freed capacity supports existing-customer outcomes and schedule resilience.

Why procurement is not the anchor

At the proposed price, an average customer has 70 requester seats and contributes:

70 × $8 × 12 = $6,720 ARR.

Reaching $6M ARR requires approximately 893 average-sized customers—81% of today’s customer base. Only two of six design partners said they would pay; neither is described as a signed commitment. Four already have a competing tool.

The estimated build is 30 Approvals & Policy weeks plus six Integrations weeks, before any additional cross-squad cost. That is too large a bet to anchor this year’s NRR target without stronger evidence.

Validation should seek paid commitments, actual seat counts and evidence of a differentiated switching reason. It is not an unbudgeted production build. A successful gate triggers an explicit investment decision, identifying displaced work and a capacity-backed launch date.

What we are not doing

We are not committing to procurement launch or its $6M claim, Dynamics, or a 22-week mobile rewrite in this horizon. We are also not inventing new feature scope to consume every available week.

The mobile support deadline remains real. By Q3, the CTO must establish the exact end-of-support date and a funded maintenance, upgrade or rewrite path. If continued safe operation requires starting earlier, it returns as a mandatory trade-off—not an assumed new-squad assignment.

Risks that could change the plan

The largest execution risks are processor certification availability, migration work that cannot be delegated, and underestimated multi-entity or controls complexity. Validate the processor work split immediately; any threat to certification displaces discretionary work first.

The largest commercial risk is insufficient expansion capture. At an illustrative $86M opening cohort, an eight-point NRR improvement represents $6.88M more retained/expanded ARR than a 104% outcome. Finance must reconcile the actual cohort and baseline. Even the full multi-entity and software-card opportunity totals only $7.41M before timing, conversion and overlap effects. This plan does not justify promising 112%.

Review the revenue bridge after Q1 launches. Weak activation should shift capacity toward removing proven adoption blockers. Strong paid procurement evidence, an earlier mobile security deadline, or demonstrated new-squad capacity can justify a replan—but none should silently become an assumption today.

Part 1: Product Roadmap (Q4 2026 – Q3 2027)

``` ==================================================================================================== SQUAD Q4 2026 Q1 2027 Q2 2027 Q3 2027 ==================================================================================================== Cards Processor v2 Migration Finish v2 (Wks 1-7) Virtual Cards for SaaS Real-Time Controls (11 wks) API Freeze/Cert (W8-11) (6 wks remaining) (Cards: 3 wks) Virtual Cards Prep Real-Time Controls Interchange Optimization (4 wks) (Cards: 5 wks) & Scaling (8 wks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Platform Multi-Entity: Core Multi-Entity: Wrap-up Platform Scaling & Cross-Entity Reporting Data Architecture (1 wk) Org Hierarchies & Enterprise Admin (11 wks) SSO & SCIM (5 wks) (11 wks) (11 wks) Hardening (5 wks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Approvals & Multi-Entity: Policy Multi-Entity: Release Real-Time Controls: Procurement Discovery Policy & Approval Routing (2 wks) Policy Engine (4 wks) & Scoping (MVP) (10 wks) A&P Rule Engine Complex Approval Rules (Approvals: 11 wks) Buffer (1 wk) Upgrades (9 wks) (7 wks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Integrations Sage Intacct Native Sage Intacct GA (2 wks) MS Dynamics Integration MS Dynamics GA (3 wks) Integration MS Dynamics Integration (Integrations: 10 wks) ERP Webhooks & Custom (9 wks) + Buffer (2 wk) (Integrations: 2 wks) Sync (8 wks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Expenses Receipt Auto-Match Mobile App Rewrite: Mobile App Rewrite: Mobile App GA & Optimization (6 wks) Phase 1 Core Workflows Phase 2 Parity/Release Expense Policy Polish Mobile Prep (5 wks) (11 wks) (11 wks) (11 wks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Squad A [Hiring / Onboarding] [Ramp / Training] Procurement Foundation Procurement Workflows (A&P Focus) (Ramped: ~5.5 wks) (Full capacity: 11 wks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Squad B [Hiring / Pipeline] [Hiring] [Onboarding / Ramp] Integrations / Core (Ecosystem Focus) (Ramped: ~5.5 wks) ==================================================================================================== ```

Squad-by-Squad Outcomes

• Cards:
• Processor v2 Migration: Protects 100% of Harbor’s card-authorisation volume ($49.9M existing ARR) against the hard 31 March 2027 processor shutoff; unlocks v2 capabilities required for virtual cards and real-time controls.
• Virtual Cards for Software Subscriptions: Captures existing customer SaaS spend currently paid via invoice/other cards ($410M addressable pool), directly driving interchange revenue to expand NRR.
• Real-Time Spend Controls: Enables 31 top-tier CFO accounts to enforce budgets at point-of-sale, unlocking enterprise card issuance and shifting unmanaged invoice spend to Harbor cards.
• Platform:
• Multi-Entity Architecture: Unlocks $2.9M contracted expansion ARR across 52 non-Harbor subsidiaries of top accounts.
• SSO & SCIM Provisioning: Unblocks $1.2M in enterprise pipeline and closes compliance gaps for 11 critical renewal accounts.
• Approvals & Policy:
• Multi-Entity Approvals: Delivers cross-subsidiary approval chains required to close existing multi-entity commitments.
• Real-Time Policy Engine: Co-delivers immediate POS budget validation with the Cards squad.
• Procurement Discovery & MVP Architecture: Reframes procurement around verified buyer demand without starving committed delivery.
• Integrations:
• Sage Intacct Integration: Halves the 13% annual churn rate of the 17% of Harbor customers on Intacct (retaining ~$875k ARR annually) and addresses Harbor's #1 new-logo loss reason (31% of lost deals).
• Microsoft Dynamics Integration: Expands ERP coverage for mid-market accounts, removing friction for 3% of existing customers and 8% of pipeline.
• Expenses:
• Receipt-Matching Improvements: Drives match rate above 71%, eliminating Harbor’s highest-volume support ticket category and improving user retention.
• Mobile App Rewrite: Eliminates framework deprecation risk ahead of the late-2027 vendor cutoff without stealing capacity from revenue-generating squads.

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Part 2: The Case for the Roadmap

Executive Summary

To achieve our board-approved target of 112% NRR by Q3 2027 ($86M ARR base expanding by ~$6.9M), Harbor must focus on the highest-probability, shortest-time-to-value expansion levers within our current 1,100 customers: multi-entity expansion ($2.9M ARR), capturing existing software spend via virtual cards ($1.3M–$2.2M ARR), and plugging Sage Intacct churn ($875k ARR retained).

Tom’s draft relied on an unbuilt Procurement module to generate $6M ARR in FY27. Ground-level capacity, vendor deadlines, and design partner data show that strategy carries severe revenue and operational risk. The proposed roadmap secures our existential card processor deadline, resolves major customer expansion requests, and establishes realistic hiring and product timelines.

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What Changed from Tom’s Draft and Why

#### 1. Realignment on Procurement ($6M ARR Myth vs. Reality) * The Math: Harbor has 1,100 customers averaging 700 employees (770,000 total users). With 10% raising purchase requests (70 users/account) at $8/user/month ($96/year), an adopting customer generates $6,720 ARR. To generate $6M ARR, 893 out of 1,100 customers (81% of our entire base) would have to buy and deploy a v1 module in under 9 months. * The Customer Signal: 4 out of 6 design partners already use dedicated tools (e.g., Coupa, Zip) and explicitly stated they will not switch. Only 2 of 6 expressed willingness to pay. * The Decision: Procurement cannot carry our FY27 NRR goal. We have reallocated primary capacity to guaranteed expansion drivers (Multi-Entity and Virtual Cards), while initiating a structured discovery and phased MVP build with Squad A.

#### 2. Realistic Hiring Capacity * Tom’s Assumption: Squad A operates at 100% capacity in Q1 2027 (11 squad-weeks) and Squad B in Q2 2027 (11 squad-weeks). * Historical Reality: Approvals to first full sprint took 5–8 months historically, delivering ~50% capacity in quarter one. Squads approved in September 2026 will not reach operational productivity until late Q1 / early Q2 2027. * The Decision: No critical-path milestone or revenue target in Q4 or Q1 relies on unhired squads. Existing squads carry core commitments; Squad A ramps on Procurement foundations in Q2 (delivering ~5.5 squad-weeks) and reaches full delivery in Q3.

#### 3. Strict Compliance with the 31 March 2027 Processor Deadline * The Constraint: The v1 API deprecates on 31 March 2027. Migrating takes 18 squad-weeks plus a mandatory 4-week processor certification freeze during which our codebase cannot change. * Execution Window: The 4-week certification must run in March 2027. Cards code complete must occur by Week 7 of Q1 2027. * The Allocation: Cards dedicates all 11 squad-weeks in Q4 2026 and 7 squad-weeks in Q1 2027 (18 weeks total). During the 4-week March freeze, the Cards squad transitions to architectural prep for Virtual Cards, avoiding wasted idle time.

#### 4. Resequencing Multi-Entity, SSO/SCIM, and Sage Intacct * Multi-Entity (Platform + Approvals): Prioritised immediately in Q4. 14 of our 60 largest accounts requested this; 9 have signed written commitments to add 52 subsidiaries ($2.9M ARR). Shipping in early Q1 allows two full quarters of rollout and revenue recognition. * Sage Intacct (Integrations): 17% of our customers use Intacct via CSV, churning at 13% vs. NetSuite’s 7%. Cutting churn across these 187 accounts ($14.6M ARR base) saves ~$875k in ARR retention while eliminating our top sales loss reason (31% of lost deals). * SSO & SCIM (Platform): Sequenced for Q1 immediately following core Multi-Entity work. For a 5-week lift, this unlocks $1.2M in stalled enterprise pipeline and secures 11 major renewals.

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How this Roadmap Hits 112% NRR

By the end of Q3 2027, this roadmap expands our $86M base by $7.0M+ in recurring expansion and retained ARR, exceeding the board's 112% target ($6.88M incremental):

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What We Are Not Doing (And Why)

1. Not building Procurement as a hasty monolith in Q1: Building a broad module against negative design-partner feedback on an imaginary timeline would burn 36 squad-weeks with minimal revenue return. We are building the data model and workflows methodically using Squad A once ramped.
2. Not assigning the Mobile Rewrite to an unhired squad: Tom assigned this 22-week project to Squad B in Q2. Squad B will not be staffed in time. Instead, the Expenses squad owns mobile: they finish Receipt Matching in Q4 (improving our #1 support issue) and execute the mobile rewrite across Q1 and Q2, completing it comfortably before late-2027 framework retirement.
3. Not prioritising Microsoft Dynamics over Sage Intacct: Dynamics accounts for only 3% of our customer base and 8% of lost deals (vs. Intacct’s 17% base and 31% deal loss). Dynamics is scheduled for Q2 after Intacct is fully deployed.
4. No cross-domain squad thrashing: Squads working out of domain suffer a 1.5× productivity penalty. We kept all squads focused within their domain expertise rather than forcing Expenses or Integrations to build Cards or Approvals features.

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Risks and Mitigation Strategies

1. Card Processor Certification Delay: * Risk: Processor testing slips past 4 weeks, threatening the 31 March v1 shutoff. * Mitigation: We complete Harbor development by Week 7 of Q1 (mid-February), yielding a two-week safety buffer before the freeze. Cards works closely with processor engineers weekly starting in Q4. 2. Multi-Entity Delivery Bottlenecks: * Risk: Multi-Entity touches both Platform (12 wks) and Approvals & Policy (10 wks); cross-squad misalignment could delay Q1 rollout. * Mitigation: The technical spec and API contract between Platform and A&P will be finalized in Sprint 1 of Q4, enabling independent parallel development. 3. Hiring Lags for Squad A and B: * Risk: Talent acquisition takes longer than the historical 5–8 months. * Mitigation: The baseline revenue plan (Multi-Entity, Virtual Cards, Intacct, SSO) relies entirely on our five existing squads. Squad A’s onboarding pace dictates the launch timing of Procurement, not the attainment of our 112% NRR target.

Harbor Roadmap, Q4 2026 to Q3 2027

Pre-read for the planning offsite. Prepared from Tom's draft.

Part 1: The roadmap

Planning assumptions - Each existing squad has 11 squad-weeks of roadmap capacity a quarter. Work done in another squad's area costs 1.5×. - The two new squads are planned at the dates our history supports, not the approved dates. Last year's squads took 5 to 8 months from approval to their first full sprint. - Squad A: 0 weeks in Q1, about 5 in Q2 (half capacity), about 11 in Q3. - Squad B: 0 weeks in Q2, about 5 in Q3. - Nothing committed depends on either new squad. - The fiscal year runs Q4 2026 (Oct to Dec) through Q3 2027 (Jul to Sep).

Squad plan by quarter (squad-weeks in brackets)

Items, outcomes and key dates

NRR bridge: what this plan plausibly delivers by end of Q3 2027

Moving NRR from 104% to 112% needs about $6.9M of additional net expansion (8 points of $86M).

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Part 2: The case for it

The short version

Tom's draft has the right ingredients. It does, however, have three problems:

1. No buffer on the processor deadline. The migration has no room to slip against a date that could stop every card authorisation.
2. Key work sits on squads we won't have. Procurement and the mobile rewrite depend on new squads that history says won't exist at full capacity until Q3 at the earliest.
3. Procurement can't carry the goal. It is expected to deliver the NRR target, but the evidence doesn't support $6M and the timing puts almost none of it inside the measurement window.

This plan protects the deadline first. It then sequences the levers with the strongest evidence so they land early enough to count. Even so, product alone likely gets us to 107% to 110%, not 112%. The exec team should know that now, not in Q3.

Why this order

1. The processor migration comes first, with buffer.

Every authorisation runs through v1, so a missed cutover puts most of our revenue at risk. On Tom's draft: - Cards alone finishes the 18 weeks around late February. - The 4-week certification then ends in the last days of March. - That leaves under a week of slack, with December holidays not counted and no room for a failed certification.

Lending 5 Platform weeks in Q4 changes this: - Code complete moves to about 31 January. - Cutover lands around 1 March. - We have roughly four weeks of buffer.

This also means virtual cards can't "start in Q1" as the draft says. During certification nothing on our card stack can change. Cards will do design and sandbox work in Q1 and start production work after cutover.

2. Multi-entity and virtual cards next, because they have the best evidence and they land in time.

NRR is measured at the end of Q3, so anything launching after about June barely counts. Our two strongest levers are: - Multi-entity: 9 customers have committed in writing to add subsidiaries, which is about $1.5M to $2.9M. - Virtual cards: a $4.5M ceiling. 26 of our 60 largest customers asked for them.

Multi-entity ships in February. Virtual cards ship in May. Real-time spend controls follow in July because they share the Cards squad. They matter to 31 CFOs, but we haven't sized them.

3. Retention work runs in parallel, because it is cheap.

• Intacct: 9 weeks of work. It addresses a segment churning at nearly twice our NetSuite rate and appears in 31% of lost deals. The integration only reduces churn if customers actually move off CSV, so I added a Q1 migration push with CS.
• SSO and SCIM: 5 weeks of work. It protects 11 accounts and unblocks $1.2M of pipeline.

4. Procurement is real but gated, and it is not the FY27 lever.

What I changed from Tom's draft, and why

1. Migration buffer. Platform lends 5 weeks in Q4. The cost is that multi-entity moves from December to February. I think that trade is clearly right, because the downside of a missed cutover is existential.

2. New squads planned realistically. - Squads approved in September reach their first full sprint between February and May, based on last year's 5 to 8 months. - Each then runs at half capacity for a quarter. - Squad A realistically gives about 5 weeks in Q2. Squad B gives nothing before Q3. - I've kept every committed item on the existing five squads. The new squads are upside.

3. Procurement moved to Approvals & Policy and gated. - A&P owns the domain, has capacity after multi-entity, and was left without work in the draft. - Build starts in Q1. At the end of March we need signed paid-pilot commitments from about 10 customers beyond the two design partners, or we redirect A&P. - GA lands around September. If Squad A arrives on time, it accelerates the work.

4. The $6M procurement figure needs resetting with the board. - At $8 per user per month and 10% of our ~770,000 employees raising requests, the ceiling is about $7.4M a year if every customer adopts. $6M therefore implies about 81% adoption. - Only 2 of 6 design partners said they'd pay. The other four already use a dedicated tool. - At a one-in-three adoption rate, procurement is worth about $2.5M at full run-rate, reached over years, and less than $0.3M inside FY27. - I recommend Tom and the CFO correct this at the next board touchpoint, before the board starts tracking it.

5. Mobile rewrite moved to Expenses, starting in Q4. - Expenses owns the app and the draft left it idle after Q4. - The rewrite finishes by May, and the old app is retired by September. - This gives the CTO's deadline real margin. Leaving it on Squad B would risk missing it.

1. Spend controls now include the A&P work (4 weeks). The draft omitted this.

1. Dynamics moves from Q1 to May. The Intacct customer migration goes first, because Intacct matters roughly five times more by customer count and lost deals.

What we're not doing

• Not claiming procurement drives FY27 NRR. We are also not building past the March gate without paid commitments.
• Not starting virtual cards or anything else on the card stack before cutover.
• Not putting any deadline-critical or NRR-critical work on unhired squads.
• Not adding new-logo-only features beyond Intacct, Dynamics and SSO, which also serve retention. New logos come second this year, as the board set.
• Not filling the Q3 reserve on Platform and Integrations. That slack absorbs migration fallout, integration hardening and new-squad onboarding. If the migration goes cleanly, we can release it to card-spend adoption work at Q2 planning.

Risks that could change the plan

1. Certification fails or needs a second round. A re-run would consume the entire buffer. - Book the certification slot now. - Run a pre-certification dry run in January. - Ask the processor in writing for a contingency extension and an emergency-fix protocol for the freeze window. - If code complete slips past mid-February, pull more Platform capacity immediately.

2. The $410M software-spend figure is extrapolated from our 60 largest accounts. Smaller customers may put proportionally less software spend on cards. - In Q4, validate it with AP data from about 20 mid-sized customers. - If it halves, virtual cards is worth about $0.4M to $0.8M in window and spend controls rises in priority.

1. Multi-entity conversion comes in below the written commitments. CS should agree subsidiary onboarding plans with the 9 customers in Q1, before the feature ships.

1. Real-time spend controls sit on the authorisation path. A latency problem could cause false declines. Platform supports this work in Q3, and we should launch in stages.

1. Hiring slips further. This doesn't threaten committed dates, but procurement would stay in Q3 and our adoption capacity shrinks.

1. The procurement gate fails. A&P redirects to deeper spend controls and multi-entity policy features, both of which feed card spend.

1. The mobile framework end-of-support date is only "late 2027". The CTO should confirm the exact date.

Decisions we need at the offsite

1. Approve Platform's Q4 loan to Cards, accepting that multi-entity moves to February.
2. Agree the board message on procurement, and the gate criteria behind it.
3. Close the NRR gap. This plan lands about 107% to 110%. Closing the remaining $1.5M to $4M needs commercial levers the CRO and CFO own, such as CS-led card activation, packaging and pricing, and a multi-entity sales motion beyond the 9. Otherwise we tell the board now that 112% is a stretch.
4. Authorise the processor extension request.